"LOU WAIT!!! You're too far ahead... I can't find my balance yet!" I cried as I struggled to leap from cloud to cloud. He was fearlessly miles ahead, leading the way as usual, but still heard my scream. He gently and confidently turned towards me and smiled that smile. You know, the one that lit up all my darkness... my whole life, and reached out his hand to me and said, "I'm right here baby."

That's how I woke up yesterday morning, right as the fabulous new guy called at 6:30am to make sure I was awake to take my daughter to school. Cuz I sleep through alarms. It's a fact known to all apparently. Yes you read that right, I did in fact say new guy. I'll tell you about him another time though.

But that's what's left now. Visitations. Dreams. Memories. Spirit. Twenty Five years of love. Eighteen years of life. Sixteen years of marriage. An entire lifetime. Kids... Love... Life. My life. His life. Our life. Not lives. Because they weren't separate. Except for when they were. But thats what's left. My ability to see, hear, feel and know with my senses, what others cannot. My ability to communicate with Spirit... that's how I experience my husband now. My. Husband. That sounds so weird now. My husband. Not sleeping in bed next to me at night. Not sending him off with a kiss before work in the morning. Not at our daughter's cheer competition or our sons football game. Not at a family party or at Yankee Stadium. But through my senses. Senses not everyone knows how to utilize or navigate. Many of you tell me it's a blessing. Normally I'd agree with that. But during the last 2 months I'd tell you it's my biggest curse. Even though I don't whole heartedly agree with that. But as of late its isolating. Abnormal. And not what I imagined when I was 15 and fell in love with him. Truth be told, I never really pictured any life for myself outside of the one I had with him. My entire adulthood rested in his shadows. In. His. Shadows. That's a loaded phrase if you think about. I led my life in his shadows. Unregrettably so. And I don't even have that now. Except for the shadows of him I see that no one else can. Which means, my every interaction with him in Spirit, I and I alone, have to question and distinguish fact from fiction. Everything I ever knew and thought I knew for that matter, comes into question and I find myself, once again, playing the role of my own critic. My own Devil's Advocate. Finding myself. Figuring myself out. Semi embracing the chance at a second life, yet semi fighting it at every turn. Trying to grasp on to every last ounce of normalcy I can manage to find amidst all the shattered pieces buried in the rubble of what used to be my life. Even the pieces that don't fit into my life anymore. Which I realize makes no sense. But when you're petrified of finding out what happens next, and petrified of having a life, period, without him... trust me. There's no logic in that. You hold on to whatever you can. For as long as you can. Because letting it all go means, he's really gone. And that... well... that's just an other worldly, unimaginable bastard kind of mental, emotional and deeply physical pain that I didn't know was possible. Because you cant know. Until you know. And when you know, you can never un-know because every pain receptor and nerve ending in your body wont shut the fuck up long enough for you to forget. It's inhuman really.

I'll talk more about the physicality of grief in a future post but for now I'll just say... it's fucking real. It's comparable to a volcano erupting. But not just one volcano and one eruption. Rather, a volcano in each and every cell that makes you, you, erupting every. Single. Fucking. Second. Even during sleep. To say its destructive is the understatement of the century. It's execution at a molecular level, is what it is. Disabling. Haunting. Vexatious. Exasperating. But also beautiful. Why? Because at this point in grief, to acknowledge pain, is to acknowledge you are mourning the perceived loss of love. Which means... you loved. And you still do. Love. Because it's the truest energy of all. And that energy can never be destroyed. It just changes. And where there is Love, there is the ability to heal. Pain at this point in grief also means you are indeed still living. And because you have love... and life, means you get to live again. And THAT... is just as beautiful as the molecular eruptions are plaguing.

Four months, one week, three days and twelve hours since he left. Thats how long it took me to begin to articulate my experiences and start writing this. Five months, nineteen hours and forty minutes since he left is when I finally had the emotional stamina to pick up where I left off. As therapeutic as this may be, putting it in text makes it real. It's freeing and excruciating all at the same time. Talk about a mind fuck.

You're probably wondering at this point, how my husband died. And I'll tell you. But not yet. Not in this post. To understand my husbands death, really understand, you would need to at least somewhat understand his life. Our life. I do not characterize my husband by the events leading up to and ultimately causing his death and I wont allow you to either. Or at least I'll try. What I'll tell you now is that, he was my hero then, and he is now. And when the time is right, and I trust Spirit will let me know, I'll tell you about our life... and educate you on events of his death.

This blog, or online journal really, will almost never go in chronological order. Mostly because I'm a very true to form intuitive Gemini, therefor my brain is not naturally wired with structure lol. As I'm drawn to talk about something, I will. And eventually all the pieces will fit into some form of divine chaos. What you can absolutely count on though, is my raw uncensored truth and my ability to metabolize what i've endured and execute it in a way that is relatable and understandable. My goal has always been to learn from where i've been, so I can teach you how to do it with a bit more ease and arm you with the tools necessary to live the life that is in alignment with your highest and greatest good. And I'm not about to stop now just because the tower crumbled and my pieces are shattered into billions. I've been doing what I do long enough to know, this is the good stuff. This is where the real life lessons come into awareness and the beauty of truth is found. This is where I heal and hopefully you will too. This is the part where I get to honor the hell out of where i've been, embrace where I am, and get really excited about where I'm going.

Vita Nova Fit Per Mortem... through death comes new life. To do that at the human level means accepting change and accepting that it is, not only ok, but essential and imperative to accept who you are. And to rebuild that tower from the foundation up, you must first find the beauty in being unapologetically.... broken open.